PHPit.net has posted yet another PHP-related tutorial, this time with a focus on test driven development.

There are several different ways of developing something. Most of us tend to simply start with a script, and gradually move along. Perhaps we've even laid out our script before hand, but we tend to stay at the developing phase, and don't really start testing when it's necessary. Basically, we develop first, and test later.

But this might not be the best way, and might lead to problems later. That's why some developers advocate a different way of developing called Test Driven Development (TDD), where by you test first, and develop later.

He uses the SimpleTest frameork to illustrate his points. He starts off with a simple example - settin g up the framework and creating a class to test a class, Biter. The testing class first just looks to see if the Biter class exists, failing before they create the class file it's looking for. With the help of a bit more code and a few more test examples, you get a good jumping off point for creating your own tests to evaluate your code.